


we're alright together

by byesexualniall



Series: we're alright together [1]
Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-15
Updated: 2018-12-15
Packaged: 2019-09-19 12:04:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,167
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17001324
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/byesexualniall/pseuds/byesexualniall
Summary: "They had no idea, the fans and the media, about Niall and Harry—long days and longer nights, tangled up in each other, skin on skin, quiet “I love you”s, songs written with and about each other, visiting their families together, planning their futures together, every day for nearly two years, starting on that January night in 2016, when Harry poured his heart out for Niall and Niall did the same. They had no idea that Louis and Harry got lunch every week, that Liam, although he traveled often, came over whenever he was home, bringing stories of far away places and gifts he’d picked up for the boys while he was gone. No one had any idea how good everything was, how active their WhatsApp group chat was, how happy all four of them were. And they had no idea, had no way of knowing, what happened when Harry, one October night in 2017, left, without telling anyone."Or, "I tried to write a sweet, fluffy Christmas fic and ended up in my angst again. It IS Christmas themed though."A warning: there is a very brief mention of a character in this story feeling suicidal. It's only a mention.





	we're alright together

The party is smaller than Niall expected it to be, which he guesses is a good thing. He’s been looking forward to this all week: spending time with friends he hasn’t seen in a while, getting embarrassingly drunk in the name of Christmas, passing out on the couch and waking up with a hangover—the fewer people at the party, the less of a chance there is for pictures of Niall making a fool of himself to end up on Twitter tomorrow morning. So, Niall tells himself, sipping on his second jack and coke of the evening, it’s a good thing that there are only 25 people here tonight. 

There’s something uniquely special about a warm, cozy party in the middle of the winter, Niall thinks, glancing around the room, glass at his lips. The Winston family London home feels like it’s glowing tonight—all the light feels golden, all the drinks taste perfect, every hug from a friend gives Niall a rush of warmth right to his heart. It’s like someone’s bottled up Christmas cheer and joy and let it loose in Ben’s house, like Niall’s high on happiness, on friendship, on Christmas. It feels like a commercial, like something that can’t last. But right now, drink in his hand, Ed chatting to him about his new album, buzz pleasantly numbing his thoughts, Niall feels perfect.

Liam’s here, too, in the other room, talking to James’ wife Jules, and Niall can hear Louis behind him, laughing at something George Ezra’s said. It’s a kind of comfort Niall hasn’t felt in a few days, the comfort of having Liam and Louis in the same place as him. They’ve been busy, the both of them, and because of that left Niall to his own devices for a little over a week. It was a big deal, quietly, and Niall managed it—but he’s glad it’s over. 

Really, though, he’s okay, now, on his own. It’s taken him a long time, and a lot of therapy, to get here, but he really is. He hasn’t forgotten, though, just how good—how safe—it feels to have Louis and Liam with him; to know that there are two people on this Earth who he’s experienced the unimaginable with, and to know that they’re right here with him. That they haven’t gone anywhere. Knowing they’re there helps Niall swallow the nagging feeling in his stomach that something is bound to go horribly wrong.

It’s something Niall’s been working on in therapy, that feeling, at all times, that something is bound to blow up in his face. It’s like he thinks he got too lucky in life—his career, his family, his friends—and that, at some point, the Universe has got to balance it all out. It’s like he’s constantly waiting for the other shoe to drop, for the shit to hit the fan, for his life to go up in flames. Marisa, his therapist, has been helping him with those thoughts, and he’s getting better at it, but tonight, for some reason, despite the Christmas cheer, Niall can’t quite swallow the sinking feeling in his stomach. Something’s bound to go wrong tonight.

He’s in the middle of a conversation with Ed when it does.

“Mate,” Louis pops his head around the corner into the kitchen, where Ed and Niall are talking over a plate of fancy cheese. Niall hadn’t realized that everyone else had, at some point in the past half an hour, left the kitchen. Louis gives Niall half a smile before continuing, “Harry’s here.”

The other shoe drops.

The shit hits the fan.

Niall’s entire life goes up in flames.

And Ed says, “oh, he came?!”

Niall doesn’t hear the rest of Ed and Louis’ conversation. He doesn’t hear anything except the blood rushing in his ears and his heart hammering in his chest. He can barely even see anymore, barely even registers when Ed leaves the room, patting him on the shoulder, to go greet Harry. He just about manages to uncross his eyes when Louis appears in front of him, snaps his fingers in front of his face, and says, “Earth to Niall?”

“Yeah,” Niall manages, “Here. On Earth.”

“Barely,” says Louis, smile tugging at the corner of his mouth, hand coming up to rest on Niall’s shoulder. “I know it sucks, mate, but you’ve got to go say hi. Payno can only manage him alone for so long.”

“Does he know I’m here?” Niall’s chewing on his thumbnail now. He and Marisa have been working on that for so long, and his nail’s been growing back out to a normal length. And here Harry comes, again, ruining all Niall’s progress. “Can I just leave out the back door?”

“Nah,” says Louis, like it wasn’t even that weird of a suggestion. “Your coat’s out front, and it’s the one he bought you last year—he knows you’re here. And get your finger out your mouth, lad, come on.” Louis tugs at Niall’s elbow until he drops his hand. Softer, Louis says, “you’ve been working on that. Don’t let him ruin it.”

Niall’s about to open his mouth, about to say  _ something  _ (thank you? I won’t? Too late? What the fuck would I ever do without you, Louis?) when a familiar laugh floats through the kitchen. Niall feels like he’s been punched in the gut. Louis’ hand tightens a little around his shoulder.

“The longer you hide in here,” says Louis, “the worse it’ll feel.”

He knows Louis is right—he and Marisa have talked about that too, about avoiding things that make him anxious, and how that usually just makes it worse in the long run. He’s gotten a lot better, Niall has, at taking a few deep breaths and just doing the scary thing. Usually, at the end, he finds it wasn’t as bad as he was making it out to be. But this—Niall could take all the deep breaths in the world and he still wouldn’t be ready to look Harry Styles in the eye again.

“Come on,” Louis tugs at Niall’s elbow again, “let’s go out there and look at his stupid face together. You’re gonna shit yourself laughing at his shoes.”

\--

As usual, Louis is right. If Niall had it in him, he absolutely would shit himself laughing at Harry’s banana yellow Gucci loafers, paired with baby pink socks. He would lose his fucking mind laughing if he could, would make fun of Harry until he couldn’t breathe anymore, would snap a picture and post it to his Instagram story with a hundred crying laughing emojis, and then save it to his highlights so he could go back and laugh at it whenever he wanted to.

Instead, all Niall can manage to do is stand behind Louis, half paying attention to a conversation between them and Ellie Goulding, as Harry does his rounds and says hello, James and Ben flanking him. Liam is slowly trailing behind Harry, James, and Ben, making eye contact with Niall every few seconds, and smiling every time he does. Niall knows what he’s trying to do—knows Liam knows how infectious his smile is—but he can’t return the favor. It’s all he can do to keep his hands out of his mouth and shoved into the back pockets of his jeans.

It’s not like he didn’t think Harry was invited tonight—he and Ben are still great friends, after all, still work together, it would be ridiculous if he wasn’t—it’s more that Niall didn’t think he’d be brave enough to show up. When he and Harry broke up—when Harry left, middle of the night, and never came back—Niall kind of, for lack of a better way to say it, he thinks, won everyone in the divorce. Their former bandmates, their friends, the people they both still work with—all of them, in their own time and in their own ways, sided with Niall. There was no question that what Harry did was shitty, (unforgivable, even, if you ask Louis) and it was easy to see how torn up Niall was compared to how stoic Harry seemed. Niall was a wreck on his bathroom floor for months. Harry was at the gym, or in Italy, or getting drunk with models in Brazilian clubs, or getting papped making out with beautiful strangers in the backseat of a Range Rover. It was all too easy for their friends to side with poor pitiful Niall with his puffy red eyes and his bitten down fingernails and his album filled with breakup ballads. Since then, Harry hasn’t shown his face around Niall—and none their friends have dared to mention Harry to him. Most of them have seen Harry since the breakup last year, Niall’s sure, but they’d never mention it to him.

And Niall hasn’t had to look at Harry in ten months. After the Range Rover incident, he decided he needed to put an end to it all, so Tara helped him figure out who to unfollow so he’d never have to see Harry’s face on Instagram or Twitter ever again, and she even set up parental controls on his phone and laptop so Harry’s name wouldn’t pop up anywhere else. He didn’t see anything from Harry’s world tour, which stretched for most of 2018. He deleted his number, his email, and archived all their old conversations and photos, stored them away in a locked folder on his laptop that only Tara and Liam have the passwords to. Not even Marisa, who Tara and Liam helped him find a few weeks after the breakup, knows how to get into the folder. Harry’s gone, folded up and stored so deep down inside Niall’s heart that a part of him forgot, honestly, that Harry’s real. A real person who he loved, who loved him, who left.

Niall had almost forgotten. Almost.

\--

It’s inevitable, of course, that Harry eventually makes his way over to them. Ellie’s long gone by the time it happens, having been pulled into a conversation with James about performing on his show in the new year, and Liam’s given up on trailing Harry, made his way over to stand with Louis and Niall instead. It’s just the three of them, Louis and Liam talking about if Bali or Hawaii is better for Louis’ next vacation, when Harry appears, as if out of thin air, next to them.

After all this time, after all that’s happened, it still feels natural for their circle to widen, just enough, to let Harry in. It’s almost unconscious, the way he slips right in. The way they let him.

“Hi,” Harry’s smile is soft, aimed at Niall. Niall feels like there’s a knife in his stomach. He doesn’t say anything.

“Nice of you to show up,” says Louis, inching protectively toward Niall. “For once.”

“I—”

“It’s been a while,” Louis doesn’t let him continue. “It’s almost like,” he takes a long sip of his beer, “you disappeared in the middle of the night and never came back.”

“Louis—” says Liam. His hand is on Niall’s shoulder, suddenly.

“We were supposed to hang out, you know,” Louis says to Harry. “We had plans to get lunch, remember, you and me? I didn’t even know—I didn’t even know until you didn’t show up to lunch. I sat in the cafe waiting for you for a fucking hour, like a knobhead, until I called Niall. And then he told me—God, you fucking wanker, Harry. You absolute fucking—”

“Enough, Louis,” Niall hears himself say it, surprised as it comes out of his mouth. But this is hard enough, being in the same room as Harry, he can’t handle Louis whisper-screaming on top of it.

The look on Louis’ face hurts his heart, shatters it when he says, “I’m just trying to stand up for you.”

He’s trying to find the words when Liam, like always, steps in, saying, “It was really nice of you to come tonight, Harry. I’m sure Ben and everyone are really happy you’re here. But you haven’t spoken to any of us in a long time and it would’ve been—it would’ve been nice of you to tell us you were planning on coming.”

“If I’d done that,” says Harry, soft but confident, “Niall wouldn’t have come tonight.”

The four of them let that hang in the air for a moment. It’s heavy, and the room is hot, and Niall’s jumper is getting itchy, and Liam is opening his mouth to speak when Niall says, “you’re right, I wouldn’t have. And I shouldn’t have. And I’m going to go home, now. It was nice to see you, Harry. Have a nice life.”

He makes it to the front door before someone stops him.

That someone is Liam, pulling gently on Niall’s arm, back toward the living room, back toward his friends. The party is still going on around them, like no one’s noticed the way Niall’s entire life is actively falling apart.

“Niall,” says Liam, eyebrows knitted together. “Niall, you don’t want to do this.”

“Yes, I do.” Niall reaches for his coat, the one Harry bought him for his birthday last year, four weeks before he left. It had been Niall’s second birthday with Harry as his boyfriend, and Niall had been thinking about the future, had been thinking about Christmas with Harry, walking around looking at the lights in London, wrapped up in this coat and Harry’s arms. After, he and Marisa had spent an entire hour-long session talking about the coat, debating if Niall should get rid of it, banish everything Harry-related from his life, or if he should reclaim it, make it his own, change it from something that reminded him of Harry every time he saw it into something neutral in his life. Niall’s worked so hard to make that fucking coat neutral, and, what a surprise, Harry’s come and ruined all his hard work.

“You’ll regret it,” Liam says, tugging the coat away, “if you leave right now. Just… try talking to him.”

“He doesn’t deserve—” Niall already feels the tears, hot, prickling at the back of his eyes. He feels awful all around, on every level, and the fact that he’s crying over it only makes him feel worse. “He doesn’t deserve to get to talk to me, and I shouldn’t have to relive all my—all my pain just because he decided… that’s not fair. Of him. I’ve spent so long working on—he doesn’t just get to dig it all up again for fucking fun.”

“I know,” Liam’s voice is soft, comforting, like they’re seventeen again and curled up on a couch in the back of a bus, talking about their insecurities. “You’re right. But I think you’ll regret it if you leave without talking to him. You’ll spend the rest of your life wondering.”

The thing is, Niall thinks to himself, letting go of his coat so Liam can hang it back up on the wall, is that all his ex-bandmates are so bloody emotionally smart, and they all know him so fucking well, and their advice, really, has never led him in the wrong direction. He knows Liam’s right—and he knows, if she was here, Marisa would probably agree with Liam, too. She’d tell him, he thinks, that he doesn’t owe Harry anything, but it might help him unpack his feelings if he gets some answers. And Liam’s already hung his coat back on the wall, is already pulling him back into the living room, and Niall has no choice, he guesses, his head throbbing dully, but to go get some fucking answers from Harry.

\--

Liam drags Niall through the living room, through the kitchen, and straight to the back of the house, into the glass conservatory room, which is chilly and empty of partygoers, save for Louis and Harry, who, unsurprisingly, are fighting. Harry’s stood with his hands shoved into the pockets of his white pants, and Louis is mid sentence, screaming about “responsibility” and “being a good fucking friend” and “we thought you were dead until Liam called Grimmy” and Niall’s head hurts.

Back here, the party is a dull, faraway hum, punctuated, every so often, by a laugh. It feels like a hundred years ago that Niall was in the living room, nursing a jack and coke, thinking about Christmas and warmth and friendship and how something was bound to go wrong tonight.

Harry, once again, it seems, showed up to prove Niall right.

Louis shuts up when he notices Liam and Niall, and Niall’s immediately thankful for it. It’s so overwhelming to see Harry in front of him that he can barely handle breathing, let alone listening to Louis scream. The fact that Harry is here, is real, is standing just a few feet from Niall, is almost incomprehensible, is absolutely something Niall thought would never happen again. But here he is: hair just bordering on longer than Harry likes it, skin tan, shirt unbuttoned to the middle of his chest, a few new tattoos on his arm, peeking out from under a rolled up sleeve. He’s real; he was never just a figment of Niall’s imagination. Harry’s real. And so is Niall’s broken heart.

“Hey,” says Harry, after a few minutes of silence. He’s looking at Niall’s hands. Niall shoves them into his pockets. “I’m glad you came back.”

Niall doesn’t know how he finds it in him to speak, but he does. And when he does, he says, “Liam dragged me. I deserve some fucking answers from you, Harry.”

“We all do,” Louis chimes in. Liam, standing between him and Niall, slaps him upside the head.

“We do!” Louis continues, batting Liam’s hand away. “The gobshite broke Niall’s heart, and I’ll kill him for it, but he fucked us over, too. I want some answers before I murder Harry’s clumsy ass.”

“This isn’t about us, Louis, it’s about—”

“This is absolutely about all of us, Liam.”

“Louis, I really think—”

“Will you two shut your gobs for one second?” Niall’s surprised at how loud his own voice comes out, but he carries on, wrangles his passion while he has it. “Harry has a lot of explaining to do, but he can’t bloody do it while you two are shouting like mums at a PTA meeting.”

Harry sneaks Niall a smile, then, and Niall hates the way he feels his heart lift. He hasn’t seen that smile in a long time.

“Thank you,” says Harry.

“I’m not doing you any fucking favors,” Niall can’t let himself get relaxed. He keeps his guard up. “This is for me, not you.”

“Right,” Harry nods once, the way he does, Niall knows, when someone says something he doesn’t want to hear. “Thank you for giving me a chance to speak, though.”

“Stop stalling and fucking explain yourself, asswipe,” says Louis. Niall, eyes trained on Harry, hears Liam’s hand come up and hit the back of his head again.

Despite feeling like he’s clawed his heart open again, there’s a tiny part of Niall that can’t help but want to laugh at this scene; it’s just so funny, the way the media and fans think of them, compared to the way they actually are. After the break, the media had painted them all out to hate each other, to see each other as competition, to want nothing to do with each other, while the fans (the poor, poor fans, Niall thinks, often) held steadfast onto the hope they still loved each other, but just didn’t get to spend time together often. They had no idea, the fans and the media, about Niall and Harry—long days and longer nights, tangled up in each other, skin on skin, quiet “I love you”s, songs written with and about each other, visiting their families together, planning their futures together, every day for nearly two years, starting on that January night in 2016, when Harry poured his heart out for Niall and Niall did the same. They had no idea that Louis and Harry got lunch every week, that Liam, although he traveled often, came over whenever he was home, bringing stories of far away places and gifts he’d picked up for the boys while he was gone. No one had any idea how good everything was, how active their WhatsApp group chat was, how happy all four of them were. And they had no idea, had no way of knowing, what happened when Harry, one October night in 2017, left, without telling anyone.

They all thought the X Factor 2015 was the end, but that final X Factor performance was three years ago today, Niall realizes with a sudden jolt of anxiety through his body, and it’s still not over.

“I don’t know where to start,” says Harry, carding a hand through his curls. They keep falling into his eyes, and Niall can tell it’s annoying him. It takes everything he has not to lean forward and brush Harry’s hair out of the way for him. Like he used to.

Liam, calm as always, says, “we can start with the night you left, if you want. Why you did it, and then we can go from there?”

“Yeah,” Louis isn’t done being angry, yet, and Niall’s kind of thankful for it. “Why’d you leave, you fucking shithead?”

Liam doesn’t tell Louis to shut up. They all stare at Harry, waiting for him to say something.

“I guess,” says Harry, hands still shoved into his pockets, “I should start by saying I’m sorry. I didn’t—I fucked up. Like, big time.”

“That’s one way to put it,” says Louis. Liam doesn’t do anything.

“So I’m sorry,” Harry continues, leaning forward a tiny bit. “I really, really am. I wasn’t—I wasn’t thinking, really, and when I really started thinking it was too late to come back and I just avoided it until it became unfixable. I avoided it until I couldn’t anymore. Even though, like, it hurt—a lot. Everyday I—everyday I wanted to come back.”

“Fuck off,” Niall hears himself say. “You were having plenty of fun.”

“I know,” Harry responds like he was ready for Niall to say that. “I did, like, have a little bit of fun. I’m not going to lie. But it was miserable fun, if that makes sense.”

“It absolutely does not,” says Louis.

“It’s like,” Harry fiddles with his hair again, and Niall feels his mouth going dry. “The stuff I was doing was fun, yeah, but I didn’t really—I didn’t really want to be doing it. I wanted to be here. Be home. With you guys. With you,” he looks at Niall. Niall, desperate to save some of his dignity, looks down at his shoes.

“Okay,” Liam takes over after a moment of heavy silence, “thank you for apologizing, Harry. But maybe we can rewind a little, and you can tell us why you left in the first place?”

Harry sighs, hair falling into his eyes. He shoves it out of the way, getting frustrated with it, Niall can tell, as he says, “that’s the harder part to explain. It was… it was just impulsive.”

Even Niall looks up, then, and Harry must feel the way the three of them are staring at him. So he continues, “there’s not going to be, like, a good answer, or one you want to hear, or one that will explain everything. Because there’s no real explanation, I don’t think. I just. I just got restless. I was never made for—I don’t think—I was never made for being the kind of person who stays some place, who settles down, who chooses one thing forever. Touring, 1D, that was kind of perfect for me, because there was so much, and it was always changing, and I was always able to go somewhere else. But after it ended, and everything settled down, and Niall and I were talking about if we wanted to buy a house together and should we combine our car insurances and what about building a home studio in the new house so we don’t have to go out as much and oh what if we looked at that place down the road from Louis’—I just, I started thinking about  _ everything _ , and it all felt so fucking  _ permanent _ , like I was sitting there drawing up the rest of my life, the rest of forever, and I just fucking flipped. I was so anxious about it. And I couldn’t sleep one night,  _ that  _ night, I was at Niall’s and I couldn’t sleep and Niall was passed out and I didn’t want to wake him, like, with my tossing and turning, so I grabbed my shit and I left. And I didn’t know what I was planning, or anything, I think I wanted to just go for a drive. And I did. I drove all night, and then in the morning I drove to Nick’s. And I stayed there for a few days, and Nick helped me think, and then I just. I got on a plane. And I turned off my phone. And I left. And I was halfway to Italy when I realized what I was doing, but I couldn’t go back. I couldn’t even—I didn’t even turn on my phone until, like, a month later. I just… I don’t know what I thought was going to happen. But I regretted it almost instantly. I think… I think I  _ needed  _ to do it, but I still regretted it.”

Louis speaks first, what feels like a hundred years later, his voice raw, but still trying to drum up anger. “You’re a fucking dickhead, Harry Styles,” is what he says.

“I know,” is how Harry responds. “And I’m sorry.”

“Sorry’s not good enough,” Louis is properly mad now, Niall can hear it bubbling over, and neither he nor Liam has time to stop him before he says, “you fucking ran out on Niall in the middle of the night, you prick. You made us all think you were fucking  _ dead  _ for 14 hours until Payno had the sense to call Grimmy and ask if he’d heard from you. You broke his heart—sorry, Nialler, but he has to hear it—you nearly fucking killed Niall with the way you broke his heart. I’ve never seen him like that. Every day—every goddamn day Payno and I worried Niall would… we worried we’d wake up the next day and Niall would be fucking dead. I slept on his couch so many fucking nights just to make sure… Liam and I took fucking shifts looking after him, for fuck’s sake. I never want to feel that way ever again. And you were just… just fucking around, fucking other people, having the time of your fucking life. You think you can come back here and just say  _ sorry _ ? I’ve always known you were dense, Harry, but fuck’s sake, I never imagined this. Who’ve you been taking advice from, Zayn?”

“Louis,” Liam says, too late and too weak, “Niall didn’t say it was okay to tell Harry all of that. And… let’s leave Z out of this.”

Louis flounders, and Niall, feeling like he’s watching this whole thing happen from inside a fishbowl, saves him. “S’alright,” he manages. “Louis is allowed to have those feelings, and he’s allowed to share them. We all—we all approach these things in different ways.”

The words are more or less plagiarized from Marisa, but they make Liam smile, so Niall feels okay about saying them. Louis’ hand comes up and touches the small of Niall’s back once, and the three of them are still facing Harry, stood across from him, like this is some kind of job interview in front of a panel. Niall can’t help but hope Harry feels the pressure. Feels they way they’ve excluded him. They way they’ve united around each other in his absence—united around the space he’d left. Again.

Niall can tell Harry, for once, doesn’t know what to say. It almost never happens, and Harry’s good at hiding it, but when it does, Niall can tell. He’s always been able to. So, he says, “you don’t have to say anything, Haz. But if you get to tell me what you were feeling, I get to tell you the same.” 

“Yeah,” Harry takes a deep breath, “you do. Niall, I—I’m really, really fucking sorry."

“I can tell,” Niall says, and means it. Harry’s face is pale, he’s wringing his hands, twisting rings so hard it must be painful, and he keeps shifting his weight from one foot to the other. He feels awful.

“Do you think,” Harry says, taking a deep breath, “I could, erm, like, talk to Niall? Just… just me and Niall?”

“No,” Louis doesn’t even wait for Harry to finish speaking, “absolutely fucking not.”

“Louis—” Liam tries.

“It’s fine, guys,” Niall cuts them both off. “I can do it. Just a few minutes, alright?”

Harry smiles at Niall. Niall shakes his head and looks away.

“I’m going to stand right outside the door,” Louis is staring Harry down, eyes narrowed, like a bully in a middle school movie, “and if I hear  _ anything  _ I don’t like, I’m coming back in and I’m punching you right in the fucking face. Understand me, Styles? Payno can’t stop me, so don’t think you’re safe just because Liam’s sane. I will—” 

“I understand,” says Harry. “And I will gracefully take the beating.”

Louis widens his eyes, a look, for a second, of recognition—the Harry he knows peeking his head back in. But it’s only a second before his eyes narrow again and he says, “fuck you,” like he means it.

“Niall, if you need us,” Liam’s big hand comes down on Niall’s shoulder, sure and solid. Niall leans into it. “We’re right outside, okay? We’re not going anywhere. I promise. And I can—erm, I can call Marisa? If you feel like this is an emergency?”

“No, thanks, Liam,” Niall keeps his eyes on Harry as he speaks, “I’ll be alright. I can do this by myself. Thank you.”

Niall barely takes his eyes off Harry as Liam drags Louis out of the room, barely registers a laugh when Louis loudly mutters something about “going to fucking kill him” and Liam shushes him even louder. He watches as a smile tugs at the corner of Harry’s lips, and when the door slams shut Harry says, “they haven’t changed, have they?”

“No,” Niall says. “Why would they have?” 

“Sorry,” Harry pulls a hair through his hand again, face falling. “That was a stupid thing to say.”

Niall wants to say “leaving was a stupid thing to do,” but he knows it wouldn’t be productive, so he keeps his mouth shut instead, waits for Harry to say his piece before clawing his heart open again.

Eventually, after the silence gets to be too much, Harry asks, “who’s Marisa?”  

“Are you kidding?” Niall wants to keep his emotions in check, the way he’s practiced so many times, but he can’t. He’s imagined this moment, dreamt about it, worked through it with Marisa, come up with every possible way he could handle Harry’s eventual return. He’s done it so many times in his head—but nothing could have prepared him for how this feels. “That’s what you have to say? Why the fuck does it matter to you who Marisa is? Why the fuck do you think you’re entitled to know who Marisa is? You’re not part of my life anymore, Harry. You  _ chose  _ not to be part of my life anymore. You don’t get to know things like that about me.”

“Sorry,” Harry recoils a bit, and Niall can tell he’s hurt. He swallows the part of him that wants to reach out and comfort. “I didn’t—I never wanted to stop being a part of your life, Niall.”

“That’s exactly what you did, though. You can’t do and say two different things.”

“I wasn’t—I didn’t—I wasn’t  _ thinking _ , Niall. I shouldn’t have—I regretted it, like, immediately. When I landed in Italy I almost booked the next flight back.”

“But you didn’t.”

“I was too afraid. I thought you wouldn’t forgive me.”

“I probably could’ve,” says Niall, honestly, “if you came back right away.”

“I know,” Harry risks a step closer to Niall, exhales when Niall doesn’t move back. “I realized that right away, too. I just—I think I needed to do what I did, Niall. So I could—so I could realize what I want, you know?”

“No.”

“I—”

“You do realize what you sound like, right?” Niall can’t keep himself in check anymore, can’t swallow his emotions the way he’s been trying to, can’t keep civil while Harry says his piece. He can barely keep himself from crying. “Saying you needed to up and abandon me so you could ‘figure out what you wanted?’ You sound like a… like a… you don’t sound like yourself. You sound like someone who doesn’t care about other people. I thought—all these years, I saw you as someone who cares so deeply about the people around you, but then you up and did this, and you completely disregarded everyone around you. And now you’re trying to justify it by saying you needed to ‘find yourself,’ like this is fucking  _ Eat, Pray, Love _ or something. That doesn’t—it doesn’t seem like you. But it  _ is  _ you because you did it. And I can’t—I can’t have a person who does things like that in my life. I can’t not know who you are, or what you’ll do, or what you’re thinking, and keep you in my life. So if you’re here, like, to get back into my life, I’m sorry, Harry, but that’s not going to happen. You have to go.”

They all slipped out so easily, Niall’s feelings. They’re feelings he’s been working through for a year, after all, a speech he’s given a million times: to Marisa, to his mum, to Liam and Louis, to his own reflection in the mirror, to Harry’s jumper hanging in his bedroom closet, the one piece of Harry he hasn’t destroyed or locked away, the one thing he hasn’t told Marisa about, for fear she’d make him throw it out. The one piece of Harry he has left, his only tangible reminder that Harry was real. This is easier, really, than Niall expected it to be, because he’s done it so many times. This is just the first time with Harry actually listening.

But the hurt look on Harry’s face, the way his eyes look glazed over, the way he presses his lips together and blinks back tears—Niall wasn’t prepared for that. And that isn’t easy. He had expected shouting, fighting, or nothing at all, a Harry who doesn’t care about him anymore. He wasn’t expecting his heart to break, again. He didn’t think it could.

“I understand,” Harry says eventually, voice weak, so far from the solid, sure, comforting voice Niall loves and knows, “why you would feel that way. But I just—if you would let me… maybe we could try to be friends again? Or even just… just ex-bandmates again?”

“Why’d you come tonight, Harry?” Niall asks the question against his better judgement, knows he should turn around and leave right now, before his wound reopens too deep, becomes too impossible to close again.

“To see you,” Harry doesn’t hesitate. “And Liam and Louis. When Ben invited me he said ‘I know you probably won’t come,’ but I really wanted to. I’ve been back in London for a week, and it’s felt like shit. I’ve been thinking about you every fucking second—I mean, I’ve been thinking about you every second for the past year, but it’s worse in London. I drove past your house a couple of times, and I thought about ringing the doorbell, but I… I was scared. And then I remembered this party. And I thought—I just wanted—I thought, out of all of you guys, Liam would be the least angry at me. So I called him, the other day, and asked if you’d be here tonight. He said you would and I said I was coming and—”

“Hang on, Liam knew?”

“Yeah, he helped me, like, figure out what to say.”

“Excuse me,  _ what _ ?”

“He came round mine last night and we talked for a long time and I explained everything to him and—”

“No, you’re lying. I was with Liam last night. I was—we had dinner, me and him and Deo.”

“I know,” says Harry. He’s talking fast now, the way he only does when he’s excited, or desperate. “He came round after. Remember, he left your house at like 9?”

“He said he had to—”

“—go see his sister, I know. He was lying. He came over mine. And we talked all night. He didn’t—he didn’t tell me that much about how you’ve been feeling, just that you might not be the most receptive to hearing me out, which I already figured. But I’d been struggling with my feelings, like, couldn’t even really get a song out about everything, and Liam helped me work it out so I could tell you clearly.”

“But,” Niall feels like this is a big, elaborate joke, like his brain synapses aren’t connecting, “just earlier, in the living room? Liam was surprised to see you, he said—”

“I know,” says Harry, again. “He was lying. He helped me out, Niall, because I’m desperate to see you, to apologize, to make it up to you, whatever you want, Niall, I—Liam just helped me put all my words in order so I could do this right. Because I know I can’t fuck it up this time. I’m all out of fuck ups.” He tries a smile. Niall doesn’t return it.

“I came tonight,” Harry recovers from the snub, takes a deep breath and continues, “I came tonight because I miss you. I’ve missed you every day since the night I left. I missed you the second I got into the fucking car—when I got into the car and started driving I was thinking about you, when I slept on Grimmy’s couch I was thinking about you, when I landed in Italy I was thinking about you, when I was kissing strangers I was thinking about you, when I was on stage all year I was thinking about you. I should’ve—I should’ve left with you. I should’ve—I was scared of settling down, yes, but it wasn’t  _ you  _ that scared me. It was… everything else. But it’s been a year and I’ve barely thought about anything other than you, Niall, and I know I fucked up, like, worse than anyone else on Earth has ever fucked up, but I’m really sorry, and I can’t, like, pretend I don’t still love you.”

It’s like the Earth has fallen out from under Niall. He was so ready for this moment, so prepared to tell Harry that he couldn’t be a part of his life anymore and then walk away, never look back, and move on with his life. He’s gotten so good at living without Harry, he was so ready to do it for the rest of forever. But the thing is, Niall thinks, standing in Ben Winston’s chilly conservatory in London, Harry across from him, hands shoved into his pockets, curls falling into his eyes, eyebrows knitted together, mouth parted slightly—the thing is, Niall doesn’t want to.

He could, he knows, turn around right now, and live the rest of his life without Harry. And he would be okay. There would be a dull ache in his chest for the rest of his life, he’s sure, but he’s getting better at patching that up, with Marisa’s help. He could live without Harry.

But he doesn’t want to.

And he doesn’t have to.

“I’m so much more, now,” Niall says, taking a deep breath, approaching this as carefully as he can, “than just in love with you.”

Harry opens his mouth to say something, but Niall keeps talking. “Like, I’ve always been a whole person, I know, but when you left it was like—it was like I couldn’t remember anything else about myself other than the fact that I was in love with you. And it took a really long time, I’m still working, really, but I remembered, and I know, now, that there’s so much more to me than just being in love with Harry Styles. I’m a whole person beyond that. And Marisa—she’s my therapist, by the way—she’s been helping me remember what else I am.”

“I know,” Harry says softly, “I know how much more you are. I love all of you, Niall.”

“I’m so much more than a person who’s in love with Harry Styles,” Niall repeats himself, “but… I’m also a person who’s in love with Harry Styles. And that’s a part of me, too, that I don’t want to have to pack away.”

It doesn’t make total sense, the way he’s worded it. Niall knows that. But he also knows Harry will understand what he’s trying to say.

“I don’t want you to pack it away, either,” Harry says eventually, voice quiet, low, Niall feels it more than he hears it. “How can I—what can we do? What do you want to do next?”

“I don’t know,” says Niall, honestly. He takes a step closer to Harry, his body practically crying to touch him. “But I think we should go slow, again, this time. Because we still have a lot to sort out.”

“I can go slow,” Harry nods, eyes widening, inching ever closer to Niall. “Do you want to go out? Just you and me? It doesn’t have to be tomorrow—maybe Sunday? What about a Sunday roast? At the pub near Liam’s old place, the one you like?”

“Yeah,” Niall and Harry are so close, now, that Niall has to look up to meet his eyes. “I’d like that. A date?”

“A date.” Harry nods twice, smiling, dimple digging into his cheek.

Then, after a few minutes of silence, spent beaming at each other like fools, Niall asks, “should we call Liam and Louis back in? I’m sure Tommo has his ear pressed up to the fucking door, and we’ve been way longer than a few minutes.”

“Yeah,” Harry sighs, “we should. But one last thing…”

“Hmm?”

“Does asking if I can kiss you still count as taking it slow?”

It doesn’t, actually, but Niall can barely breathe, let alone say no. He’s never wanted anything more in his entire life, he thinks, than to kiss Harry right now—not even waiting to hear if he got through on The X Factor rivaled this feeling.

“I think I can let it slide,” is what he says, staring at Harry like he’s worried he’ll vanish the second he takes his eyes off him.

It looks like Harry’s going to say something for a second, but he doesn’t. Instead, he fully closes the gap between him and Niall, crowding Niall in a way he forgot he loved, and uses his hand to guide Niall’s chin up, up, up, until their lips meet in the middle.

It’s been one year, two months, and three days since Niall kissed Harry last. He thought he stopped counting. But he never stops anything when it comes to Harry.

They melt into each other, Harry’s arms tangling around Niall’s waist, Niall’s up around Harry’s neck. They fit, perfectly, just the way they always have. And they kiss, perfectly, just the way they always have, for less than a minute, until Harry pulls away.

Niall feels like he’s been sucker punched. Harry looks the same way.

“Taking it slow,” Harry says, labored, forehead pressed against Niall’s. “Snogging isn’t slow.”

Niall has half a mind to pull Harry down by the collar and say fuck slow, but he doesn’t. Because Harry’s right.

“I missed you,” says Harry, finally. “So much. And I’m so sorry.”

Niall opens his mouth to return the sentiment, but it isn’t his voice that comes out. Instead, it’s a very familiar, very irritated Yorkshire accent behind him shouting, “I’m coming in! it’s been way longer than a few minutes!”

There’s the sound of the door opening loudly, then, and Liam’s voice behind Louis’, calling “stop it, Louis! Let them talk it out—”

“They’re not fucking talking, Payno.” Louis whines. Niall, facing away from the door, can’t see him, but he can imagine him—and that’s enough to make him laugh. Harry, facing Louis, raises his eyebrows and bites his lip, a laugh shaking his chest, shaking Niall, too.

Niall and Harry, trying desperately not to laugh in Louis’ face, can’t look anywhere but each other. They’re still stood in the middle of the room, foreheads pressed together, arms around each other, lips a centimeter apart.

Louis, from somewhere near the door, says, “for fuck’s sake.”

\--

Two hours later and it’s like they’re teenagers in a movie, the four of them, sitting on the curb outside Ben’s house, feet in the street, hands pressed back into the grass, Liam, Harry, Niall, Louis, staring up at the night sky. The party is still going on inside—from out here Niall can really see how the house does glow, golden light spilling out the windows and onto the dark street, muffled sounds of laughter and Christmas music, one of Ben’s four Christmas trees twinkling in the front foyer. It’s cold out, tonight, but just being near the house makes Niall feel warm. Or maybe that’s the way he’s pressed up against Harry’s side. Taking it slow, he reminds himself.

“I can’t believe you didn’t tell me,” Louis says. He takes a drag of his cigarette and passes it to Liam. Niall hadn’t noticed, until about five months after Harry left, that Liam had taken up smoking. It was a shock to the system when he did notice—realizing how little he’d been paying attention to anyone but himself.

He wonders if Liam will quit, now that Harry’s back.

“He was doing me a favor,” Harry says. “It’s my fault.”

“Yeah, well,” Louis takes his cigarette back from Liam. “I could blame a lot on you.” There’s a smile in his voice, though, and Liam laughs, Harry snorts, and Niall grins. He hasn’t felt this good in so long.

“Thank you,” Harry says quietly, a few minutes later. “For letting me come back. And for taking such good care of Niall while I was gone.”

A tiny part of Niall wants to protest:  _ I can take care of myself, I’m a grown man _ , but it’s true—he’s not sure how he would have made it through this last year without Liam and Louis behind him. When he turns to look at them, Liam looks contemplative, and Louis is frowning.

“I’m not going to say, like, it’s okay,” says Louis, smoke wafting in Niall’s direction as he speaks, “because it was fucked. But, you know, we’d do anything for him. And, as much as it fucking pains me to say this, we’d do anything for you.” A pause, and then, “you’re still on thin fucking ice, though.”

Harry laughs, Niall feels tears pricking at the back of his eyes again.

“Just,” says Liam, finally, firmly, “don’t do it again.”

“I can absolutely promise,” says Harry sits up fully, hands in his lap, “that I will never, as long as I live, do that again.”

“Good,” says Liam, “I’ll write you out of my will if you do,” says Louis, and nothing, says Niall.

They sit in silence like that for a little while, the four of them, and it feels good. It’s always felt good, even on the days when they’d spent too much time together and were dying to get home and just fucking relax—it’s always felt good for the four of them to just  _ be  _ together. Niall had been so focused on how much he missed Harry that he had kind of forgotten how much he missed this.

Harry’s leaning back a little, again, and the tips of his fingers are touching the tips of Niall’s where they’re both pressed into the grass. Niall scooches just a tiny bit to the side, lets two of his fingers overlap with Harry’s. Out of the corner of his eye, he can see the smile stretching across Harry’s face.

Niall’s not quite sure how long it’s been when Liam breaks the silence, saying, “as much as I’d like to sit here all night, boys, I should head home. I’ve got an early morning tomorrow. Going into the studio to help with that new track…” he trails off, still nervous talking about his new stint as a producer.

But it’s perfect for Liam, and Liam’s perfect at it, and Harry, perfect, too, says, “that’s brilliant, Liam. Tell us how it goes, yeah?”

Liam can’t hide the way he’s beaming, but he tries, ducking his head as he reaches into the pocket of his long duster coat to fish out his phone. He gets up and steps around the corner to make the call for a car, presumably for him and Louis—they carpool to and from most events, these days.

Louis gets up, too, flicks his cigarette on the ground and says, “I’ll go get Liam’s rucksack—he left it inside.” And then he’s gone, and it’s just Niall and Harry, and it’s getting colder out, without Liam and Louis to help keep the body heat in, but Niall doesn’t want to go, doesn’t want to be without Harry ever again. He knows he has to, though.

“I guess we should get going too,” Niall can tell Harry doesn’t really want to say it, but he’s doing what they said they would do: taking it slow. If it was two years ago, they’d take two more shots and clamber into the back of a car and grind on each other all the way back to Niall’s apartment. But tonight, Harry stands up, extends a hand to help Niall up too, and then says, “can I put your car on my card?”

Niall laughs, but his heart is swelling in his chest. Harry used to do that all the time, pay for Niall’s cars. “No,” Niall smiles, “I’m alright, thanks.”

“‘Kay,” Harry hasn’t taken his eyes off Niall, hasn’t made any moves to call a car. “I’ll see you on Sunday, then? How does 4pm sound?”

“Sounds great,” says Niall. “Sunday, 4pm. And, hey,” he shuffles his feet a little, suddenly nervous, suddenly letting the cold air get to him, “I’ve been thinking?”

“Yeah?” Niall can see Harry’s breath as he speaks.

“You don’t have to say yes, but I was thinking it might be good if… if you’re interested, if Sunday goes well—”

“Our first date.”

“Our first date, yeah, if that goes well and we decide that we want to, like, carry on with this… if you’re interested, I could call Marisa, and ask, erm, if she knows anyone who does couples therapy, like. She couldn’t do it, that’s not allowed, since I’m an existing client, but she’s really smart, and really helpful, and I bet she knows someone, and I know it sounds a little stupid but therapy’s helped me a lot and I think—”

“Niall,” Harry’s hand comes up and rests on Niall’s waist, gently putting a stop to his rambling. “That sounds like a really good idea. We should—if Sunday goes well, I mean—we should definitely do that.”

“Okay,” Niall feels like he weighs nothing, like he’s worried about nothing, like he’d been carrying something for so long, and someone just offered to take it from him. “I’ll call her. If—if Sunday goes well, I mean.”

Harry laughs, quiet, just for Niall. “If Sunday goes well, yeah.”

Liam and Louis join them, then, at the curb, and they wait, together, for their car. Harry calls a car for himself while they’re waiting, and Louis and Liam talk about Bali and Hawaii, again, because Louis just can’t seem to make up his fucking mind. Harry, hand on the small of Niall’s back, says he liked Hawaii better. Louis, finishing another cigarette, declares, “okay, it’s settled then. I’ll book my flight to Bali tomorrow.”

When their car comes, Liam and Louis both pull Niall into a group hug. Harry stands with his hands behind his back, waiting patiently while Liam presses a kiss to the top of Niall’s head and Louis mutters, “I  _ will  _ kill him, if you need me to.” Niall just laughs, face smushed into Liam’s chest, wondering how on Earth he’ll ever find a way to thank them.

Liam gives Harry a hug, too, whispers something in his ear that Niall doesn’t hear, doesn’t have to hear. And Louis, too, hugs Harry, pats his back twice, just a little too hard. He’s never been good at keeping his voice down, so Niall hears perfectly when Louis says, “I’m glad you’re back, H.”

They pile into the car, then, just as Harry’s pulls up behind them. Louis rolls down the window as they pull away, waving goodbye.

And then it’s just the three of them: Niall, Harry, and Harry’s driver, waiting at the curb.

“Okay,” Harry’s voice is reluctant, his eyes flickering back and forth between Niall and the car. “I’ll see you on Sunday. At 4. Do you have… how are you getting home?”

“Sunday at 4,” Niall repeats. “And I’m alright. I was planning to stay here tonight, actually. My stuff’s already in the guest room.”

“I can’t wait,” Harry lets it slip out, Niall sees the way his cheeks flush in the dark night.

“I’m excited too,” says Niall. “Really.”

Harry ducks his head and, at first, Niall thinks it’s to hide the way he’s blushing. But then his lips land on Niall’s cheek, warm and soft and they linger, for just a little bit too long before he pulls away.

“Goodnight, Niall.”

“Night, H,” Niall’s blushing too, he’s sure. It really does feel like they’re planning a first date. As if he hasn’t already had Harry in every way possible.

Niall shoves his free hand in his coat pockets and watches as Harry climbs into the car and shuts the door behind him. He rolls down the window to wave, too, and Niall keeps his other hand up until the car makes it to the end of the street and turns right, back toward Harry’s. Then he rolls his shoulders, takes a few deep breaths, and makes his way inside.

Sunday will come soon enough, he tells himself, pulling open the door and stepping back into the party. And he’ll be okay. Even if Harry doesn’t show up. He’ll be okay.

**Author's Note:**

> hi!! thank you so, so, so, so much for reading! it means the world to me.
> 
> i'm so sorry this fic is depressing as hell—I was working on a cute fluffy uni au for Christmas but I got stuck and opened a new doc and this came out. I think I just wanted some OT4 love in my life. I promise I have it in me to write stuff that isn't gut wrenching, though. 
> 
> Also, even though this is sad, I have, like, an entire universe for this fic already worked out in my head. if you liked it enough let me know because i think it warrants a prequel and maybe a sequel (?) and i have ideas for both! 
> 
> double also, i listened to a lot of george ezra while writing this, so that's where the title comes from.
> 
> thank you so much! and happy holidays! and if you want to talk narry or ot4 or whatever, you can find me on tumblr @ jinglebellhoran! xx


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